Puzzling
by jayer
Summary: the flight home missing scene from Blood Hungry


"Thanks." Morgan took the bottle of water Greenway held out. "What's so funny?" He asked as she dropped into the seat across from JJ and picked up the cards she was dealing out.

"Hotch is totally crashed." Elle laughed. "I think this turbulence could crash the plane and he'd sleep right through it."

"Not surprising." JJ tossed a card down. "36 hour days, a baby that doesn't care that Daddy hasn't gotten any sleep."

"I can't imagine what it's like." Elle nodded. "Always having to run off, no time to spend with his son. Tons of guilt about not being there to help Haley, not that she ever complains."

"That's why I'm never having kids."

"You're assuming there's a woman out there that's crazy enough to have your kid." Greenway laughed.

"He could pay her."

"She'd have to be pretty desperate."

"Okay." Morgan stood up. "I'm so not feeling the love here."

Morgan slid into the seat across the table from Reid, who was scribbling something in a book.

"How you doing?"

"Fine."

"How the dreams?"

"Better."

"Good." Morgan nodded, mostly to himself since Reid hadn't looked up from his book. "What's that?"

"My plan for total world domination."

"Ha, ha."

"It's a puzzle magazine." Reid flipped his pencil over and erased something. "My mother sent it to me."

"Your mother? What, does she send her boy little care packages?"

"I'm the baby of the family and the only one that doesn't live in Vegas and work in the same casino with her. So if it makes her feel better to send me cookies or whatever, I'm not stopping her."

"She sent you cookies?"

"Two dozen chocolate chip walnut and two dozen oatmeal cherry raisin." Reid gave him an annoyed look. "Mock my mother's care packages again and you won't get any."

"That's harsh, man." Morgan laughed. "What's the story with the magazine?"

"I was coloring in the lines by the time I was two so those little paper menus and the crayons at restaurants did nothing to keep me occupied. Mom would give me puzzles to do until we got our food."

"So you were doing crossword puzzles at two?"

"No. More like 5. And most of them are logic puzzles. A bunch of the crew at the casino started doing this new puzzle that's all over the papers and she said it reminded her of when I was little so she grabbed a couple of magazines and sent them to me."

"And since Gideon's not here to whup you in chess, you figured you'd try out Mom's puzzles."

"Something like that."

"Hey, that's the puzzle from the paper." JJ sat down next to Reid.

Morgan shook his head as Elle sat down next to him. "What, get bored with your cards and come to harass me some more?"

"You have to add them up or something, right?"

"That's Kakuro. This is just Sudoku."

"So what do you do?" Elle asked, ignoring Morgan.

"You have to put the numbers one through nine in each row, each column and each smaller square without repeating any numbers."

"Doesn't sound that hard."

"It can be. Depending on the number of places that are already filled in."

Elle shook her head. "Maybe I'm just tired but I don't get it."

"You just have to systematically --" Reid stopped, flipping the magazine to a page in the front. He laid the magazine down in the middle of the table. "The easiest way to start is to look for the places were you can eliminate all empty spaces but one." Reid tapped a square. "You know that the number 4 has to go in this square."

"Sorry."

"Wait, I think I get it." JJ said, staring at the page. "You can't have a 4 in the first column because there's a 4 in the square under it and you can't have a 4 in the third column because there's one in the bottom square. So it has to be in the middle column, but there's a 4 in the top row in the last column. So the 4 can only go in the middle square because there's a 9 in the bottom one.."

Reid nodded, writing the number in the square. "Exactly. Some puzzles are so easy you can solve the whole thing like that."

"And when they aren't?"

"Then you have to eliminate choices other ways. That's where the logic comes in."

"Do you have any more?"

Reid laughed. He tore a couple of pages out of the magazine and handed them to the ladies.

"Can I try one?"

Reid ripped another page out of the magazine and slid it across to Morgan.

A comfortable silence soon fell over the table. Before they knew it, the plane was landing. JJ woke Hotch up and they gathered up their bags and headed for their cars.

"Hey Reid." Morgan caught Reid before he got into his car. "That puzzle thing was kind of fun."

"Are you saying that one of my geek pastimes is actually cool?"

"Well, yeah." Morgan laughed. "And I'm sorry about making fun of your mother."

"Apology accepted."

"You are going to share those cookies right?"

"I might."


End file.
